If you are only a sidelines spectator of the #OccupyTogether occupations happening right now all around our world, then it’s likely you have a lot in common with moderate, liberal-minded, Oakland CA USA resident Lili Loofbourow. But when the ABC and CBS livestream news feeds of the cops’ violent attack on peaceful protesters both went dark*, just before the tear gas rounds and stun grenades started flying, Lili decided the best way to witness what was occurring in her own hometown was to show up in person. You can read how a passive, concerned, but self-sidelined observer became an active and dynamic political participant in the Occupy Oakland General Assembly, in Lili's wonderful, illustrated, well-written and well-reasoned recounting of the transformational power of participatory direct democracy:
• ‘The Livestream Ended: How I Got Off My Computer And Onto The Street At Occupy Oakland’
— by Lili Loofbourow, Fri 28 Oct 2011
» http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/the-livestream-ended-how-i-got-off-my-computer-and-into-the-streets-at-occupy-oakland

FROM CONCERNED CITIZEN TO POLITICISED PARTICIPANT
Please take the time to read Lili’s piece in full, and here are two excerpts to whet your appetite.

“To sum up: the only two mainstream media live-feeds switched off at precisely the same instant—the minute before fifteen police departments working together engulfed a peaceful group of protesters in tear gas.

That crucial minute, when the media (whether by accident or in compliance with police orders) enabled the police to tear-gas peaceful American citizens untelevised, shares something with the time of day recorded by those chalk shadows on the sidewalk. It's an ephemeral moment, but it lasted much, much longer than a minute should. It's a shadow whose original has disappeared, and it's all the more significant for that.

Given our image-saturated society, it's hard to explain how the absence of an image can be more dramatic, a bigger scandal, than the hundreds of disturbing videos of citizens being attacked by police. We're used to thinking of surveillance as the enemy. Big Brother abides, and I can testify that there's something undeniably eerie about the news helicopters hovering over my neighborhood. But for those helicopters hanging in our sky for hours and hours, waiting for a story, to disappear precisely when the story breaks—that's a different kind of sinister, a different kind of wrong. [...]

And that's how I—a mealy-mouthed moderate visiting Occupy Oakland reluctantly, and for the very first time—was not only welcomed but spoke, was listened to, and was heard. I'll note here that the proposal passed, unamended, and the planning committees are open to anyone who wishes to be involved. The debate continues, and you can participate as much as you want to. After three decades as an American citizen and years of leaving messages for my representative, only last night, speaking into the human microphone, did I feel for the first time that my political participation could matter.

The best answer I can muster for the question of what an engaged citizen tired of being a spectator can do is this: try the ordinary channels and try being one of the 99%. It is not perfect. Nothing is. But there is room for more than your vote or your money: there is room for you, your body and your brain. It offers something our political system (increasingly peopled as it is by disembodied, bodiless, shadowless “corporate” persons) doesn't. It's this: talk into the human microphone, and your voice doesn't disappear. It's amplified.”
~ Lili Loofbourow
• from ‘The Livestream Ended: How I Got Off My Computer And Onto The Street At Occupy Oakland’


AUDIENCE OR ACTOR?
All of which begs the questions...

• Passivity or participation – which is right for you?
• What might happen to you if you too joined in with your local Occupy [PlaceName] General Assembly in some directly democratic public policy decision-making?
• Maybe something wonderful too?

Here’s some assistance in locating your local Occupy [PlaceName] General Assembly...

• Occupy London is at St Paul's Cathedral and Finsbury Square:
» http://occupylondon.org.uk

• Occupy Britain is the hub website for the occupations occurring across the UK:
» http://www.occupybritain.co.uk

• Occupy Together brings together the hundreds of cities hosting their own mass direct democracy occupations all around the world:
» http://www.occupytogether.org

I hope you’ll choose to stand up for yourself, be an actor in our world-changing global epic, and leave your seat in the audience empty.

Share and Enjoy, Peace-&-Love, Tim Dalinian Jones


HISTORICAL INSPIRATION
• C18 French Revolution:
• “Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous!”  
~ Revolutionary French journalist Camille Desmoulins in Paris 1789

• C20 Irish Revolution:
• “Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis!”
~ Revolutionary Irishmen James Connolly and Big Jim Larkin in Dublin 1897-1916

• C21 Global Revolution:
• “The great only appear great because we are on our knees: Let Us RISE!”
~ Revolutionary Internationalist photovideojournalist Tim Dalinian Jones in London 1982-present

* When the ABC and CBS livestreams of the cops' violent attack on peaceful protesters both went dark – on Tue 25 Oct 2011, as peaceful citizens in the soft fabrics of street clothes were assaulted by body-armoured and gas-masked cops, in Oakland CA USA, during which Scott Olsen, 24, a Marine lance corporal who served two tours of duty in Iraq, suffered a skull fracture when he was struck by a projectile fired by police officers. Thankfully, Scott is recovering in Oakland’s Highland Hospital, where doctors do not anticipate a need to operate and are optimistic about his recovery.
• ‘Occupy Oakland regroups; injured Iraq war veteran recovering’, by Lee Romney in Oakland, Fri 28 Oct 2011
» http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/occupy-oakland-regroups-injured-iraq-war-veteran-.html
NB: police violence is the rare exception (usually beloved and over-emphasised by mainstream media) rather than the rule – which is 99% citizens discovering self-rule through participatory direct democracy, all around our world.